


i hoped, i wished, i wanted

by hawksonfire



Series: oh, the good ol' days [8]
Category: Marvel
Genre: M/M, Marvel Bingo 2019, Multi, No Dialogue, Pre-relationship (Steve/Bucky/Clint), Steve's Inner Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2021-01-31 08:47:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21443461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hawksonfire/pseuds/hawksonfire
Summary: In which we get a little peek at Steve's innermost thoughts.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton, James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton/Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: oh, the good ol' days [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1533320
Comments: 41
Kudos: 178
Collections: Marvel Bingo 2019





	i hoped, i wished, i wanted

**Author's Note:**

> Marvel Bingo Square O1 - Fantasy.
> 
> ow. this hurt to write. but!!! there is hope. probably.

**Steve**

It’s not so much a fantasy, that Steve has, because that word calls to mind something of a more physical nature. And while that would be nice - _ calloused hands sliding over skin, the rasp of stubble on his neck, mouths in his most sensitive places _ \- it’s not all he wants. 

He’d call it a dream, but that makes it seem like something so far out of reach it can only happen in the parts of his mind that he doesn’t let anyone see, because he’s happy. Really. 

It’s not a hope, he knows that for sure. If it were a hope, that means there’s a slim chance that it could actually happen. And Steve doesn’t think there is. 

Does it make him a terrible person, if he looks at Clint and knows that he could be content, if not even happy with him - and thinks it’s not enough? They could get there, to enough, if they have time. And that’s the thing, see, they do. They have all the time in the world. 

But that’s what Steve thought about Bucky too, and then he fell off a train. It’s not his fault, _ never _ his fault, but Steve still hears Bucky’s screams as he fell in his nightmares. The ones that he wakes up from to find Clint holding him, murmuring nonsense that he can’t hear just so Steve will wake up feeling slightly safer. 

Steve’s never been a patient man. He was impatient before the serum, fed up with waiting for the world to change, to give equal rights to _ all _ people, not just the ones that people in power deemed worthy. It still makes him furious - so furious that a tinge of red comes over his vision whenever he thinks about it - that people aren’t considered equal the second that there’s a person to consider. 

He was impatient after he got the serum, rushing off to try and bring a submarine up from underwater. He got the guy, but that’s beside the point - Steve’s been rushing towards death ever since he was a kid, born too small and too early and too sickly. If it wasn’t for his ma, and then Bucky after she was gone, Steve wouldn’t have made it to the serum. He would’ve died in some back alley or during some cold winter, and the name Steve Rogers would have been lost to history. 

He wonders if it still has been, sometimes.

And then he crashed the Valkyrie, and for what felt like a _ second _ but was actually 66 years - everything was blissfully, peacefully, quiet. He was at peace. 

And then he woke up, and they shoved him into a world that was too loud and too bright and too full and not different enough from the world he left behind. People were still fighting for their right to be treated as equal, and people in power were still fighting against them on it, too concerned with their bottom line to understand how it was affecting the people. Or, more accurately, to concerned with their bottom line to _ care _ how it was affecting the people. 

So no. It’s not a fantasy, or a dream, or a hope. It’s Steve’s deepest, darkest secret. His most private wish. 

All he wants, all he thinks he’s ever wanted... Steve can’t let go of his past, of Bucky. But he doesn’t want to stay there either. He wants to look forward, to the future - his future. If someone asked him to choose, to pick one and stay there, he’s not so sure that he could. More to the point, he’s not so sure that he _ would_.

What he’s getting at, the point behind his self-indulgent ramblings - he loves Bucky. Barnes. Both of them. Who he was, who he is, and who he is becoming, every day that he stays in the Tower. He loves Bucky Barnes with every part of himself - every inch of skin, every drop of blood, every ounce of his godforsaken being loves Bucky Barnes. Always has, always will.

But he loves Clint, too. The same as Bucky - every inch, drop and ounce of his self loves Clint. He loves the both of them with all that he was, all that he is, all that he ever will be. It’s one of the irrefutable truths of the universe - Steve Rogers loves Clint Barton and Bucky Barnes. 

So to ask him to choose? To make him go against every fibre of his being and choose one of them? It makes him a horrible person, but he can’t. He won’t. The only thing he can do, the only thing he _ will _ do - is pray. Pray to any god that’s listening, pray to all the gods he knows and some that he doesn’t. Pray that they never make him choose, because he’s not sure that it won’t kill him. 

If he lets himself imagine, if he lets himself dream or hope or wish or fantasize or whatever you want to call it - if he lets himself do it, he’s not sure he’ll be able to go on without wanting it. And wanting something that you can never have, wanting something like that? That can destroy a man. Steve’s seen enough to know that. 

And yet, if he lets himself picture it... If he lets himself picture Clint and Barnes, together, smiling at him and holding out their hands so he can join them... It’s too much sometimes. Just the other day, he let himself into Clint’s rooms and found them watching a movie on the couch together, curled up at opposite ends with a Steve shaped hole between them. 

He tried to act normal, he really did. But his eyes kept flicking in between them and Barnes must have taken it the wrong way because he made a joke about letting Steve get in some time with his fella and retreated to the armchair. Steve laughed, and he brushed it off and curled up with Clint - but he was watching Barnes the whole movie. 

He looked so alone in the armchair, all Steve wanted to do was reach out and make it better. Open up the space on the other end of the couch and invite Barnes to sit in it. To move closer, if he wanted. To maybe, _ possibly_, let Steve hug him goodnight when he left to leave his lovers, old and new, to go back to his cold lonely bed.

Steve doesn’t want just Barnes or just Clint, though. He wants them both, together. With him and without. When he thinks about it - when he _ fantasizes _ about it - it’s the three of them, standing strong against any threat. He’d want it so badly it would hurt, if he let himself want it. Whenever he sees them laughing together or joking, even a little, he gets hit, right in the gut, with a bolt of want so strong it knocks him on his ass every time. 

And he breaks, a little more, every time he has to leave and hears the _ click _ of Clint’s door shutting behind him.

And he wants, a little more, every time that door opens and one or both of their smiling faces greet him. 

So it’s not so much a dream, or a hope, or a wish that he has. If he had to pick a word for it... Yeah. Fantasy probably does the trick.


End file.
